Food cargo en route to Khankendi: to accept or not accept? Four analyst opinions on Caliber.Az

Baku has recently dispatched 40 tons of food assistance to the Armenian community of the Garabagh region of Azerbaijan, which is, according to the farfetched tale spun by the Armenian propaganda, "under blockade and suffering from hunger". This step could become an important event in establishing contact between Baku and the Armenians of Garabagh. So far, however, the food sent has not reached Khankendi, as the leftovers of the separatists refuse to grant permission to the trucks of the Azerbaijan Red Crescent Society.

It is blankly obvious, that if the "starving people" in Garabagh do not want to receive the food cargo, that must mean that there was no "hunger" on the horizon. But what next? With this question, the editorial office of Caliber.Az turned to well-known domestic and foreign experts.

According to Farhad Mammadov, the Head of the South Caucasus Research Center, sending Garabagh Armenians food cargo in the form of flour goods is, first of all, a demonstration that the road through Aghdam is functioning, it is in an operational state and you can get to Khankendi much faster on it. The political scientist further believes, that this step will help Baku to bring clarity to the core issueof the provocation by Armenians regarding "hunger" and "blockade".

"The second element of this act is a signal and demonstration to those countries that are so concerned about the humanitarian situation with the Armenians of Garabagh, namely that they are capable of helping by not using the Lachin road, having done it within the framework of the legal rules and norms of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Therefore for Baku, this is actually a punch at the attempts to politicize the Lachin road as the only possible way to Khankendi and a challenge to the organizers of this PR campaign to inflate the scale of the "crisis". If someone really does care this deeply about the "humanitarian crisis", they should use all roads, especially those provided by Azerbaijan. Yet if the Armenians do not accept the cargo sent to them, it is an indicator of the self-blockade by those who have usurped leadership of the Armenian community of Garabagh.
It should be noted that the food cargo of the Azerbaijani Red Crescent is also an appeal to the Armenians of Garabagh to get reintegrated quickly into Azerbaijani society, a confirmation that their future depends on Azerbaijan. They must accept this inevitability and realize that they have been pushed into the present situation by the leadership of the separatists and Armenia, and make the most important choice in their lives", said Mammadov.

Member of the Azerbaijani Parliament, Political Scientist Rasim Musabeyov has a slightly different view of the event and believes that Baku has no obvious motive to provide Khankendi Armenians with any kind of food aid, and that this is a gesture of goodwill.
"Did a natural disaster occur there - a flood or an earthquake? Or is there a war going on? The Armenians have driven themselves into a blockade. The road between Asgaran and Aghdam is being blocked not by Azerbaijanis, not by Russian peacekeepers, but by the Garabagh Armenians themselves.

All this was organized specifically by Ruben Vardanyan, who actually should have been removed from our territory a long time ago. So if we consider the mere fact of sending food cargo - it is foremost a test for Garabagh Armenians, a test for those who blow a provocative propaganda against Azerbaijan up, as well as an answer to all those, who are jumping at another attempt of adopting some kind of a resolution at the UN Security Council on an alleged humanitarian crisis of the Armenians. This 'crisis' is man-made, organized by the separatist leadership as an attempt to make a provocative fuss. So I think that the Azerbaijani Red Crescent did the right thing here, and going forward everything depends on the reaction of the Armenians of Garabagh: if they reject this cargo, it will prove the falsity of their propaganda, and if they accept it will not only be a sign for a beginning of dialogue, but also the possibility for them to acquire Azerbaijani goods on a commercial basis, as is happening throughout the territory of Azerbaijan, just like our citizens do. I do not think it is necessary to turn all this into an endless supply of food supplies for Garabagh Armenians just because they do not want to buy them on the territory of Azerbaijan", concluded Musabeyov.

Ukrainian Military and Political Observer at the "Informational Resistance" Group, Aleksandr Kovalenko presented his comment on Azerbaijan’s dispatching of a food convoy to Garabagh Armenians and does not doubt that card played by the Armenians of a "famine in Khankendi" is the extreme hypocrisy of the separatist leadership in Karabakh.

"For me, as a Ukrainian, meaning a representative of the nation, which suffered during the years of the man-made Holodomor [Great Ukrainian Famine], it is simply disgusting to watch the behavior of Armenians claiming "hunger", "blockade" and "genocide". This picture is completely untrue, while the Armenians themselves living in Khankendi do not hesitate to expose on social networks photos and videos of how they are quite financially stable and spend their days being full, without experiencing any problems and difficulties. At the same time, the Armenian side does not give up its propaganda, involving in this spectacle representatives of political forces from other countries, from Europe", the political scientist points out.

Kovalenko says that in order to expose this fake story, it is not enough to merely demonstrate what is happening in restaurants in Khankendi, but it is necessary to generally show what the residents look like, whether they are truly unable to move around the city because of the loss of energy from the severe hunger, as the Armenian propaganda ensures.

"As for the Azerbaijani food cargo sent to Garabagh, it is a kind of 'check' move from Baku. Not yet 'mate', but already 'check' regarding the conditionally blocked Khankendi. After all, the 'suffering' and 'starving' Armenians cannot not accept the load: if they are really on the verge of starvation, then the refusal of flour products for them, in fact, would be suicide. And if they accept, it could turn into an internal conflict with the revanchist forces. In other words, Baku puts all the separatist troops in a very uncomfortable position. And it turns out that no matter what they do now, no matter how they react to the shipment of this food cargo, they will still lose", Kovalenko is sure.

According to Andrey Petrov, Deputy Director General of the "Vestnik of the Caucasus" news outlet and Russian political scientist, the delivery of food through the Aghdam-Khankendi road is the continuation of the practical policy of Azerbaijan on the resolution of those questions that remain after the 44-day war. In contrast to Armenia, which is engaged in the policy of "doing nothing" and spinning up false statements about Baku.

"Currently, one of the problems in establishing peace is the attempt to create some kind of a blockade of Armenians of Garabagh by the authorities of Azerbaijan in the mass media. This campaign provides an opportunity for Yerevan to replace a genuine settlement agenda with a false one. But the first step in destroying these plans was the construction of the Aghdam-Khankendi road by Azerbaijan.
The second step is the dispatching of the Azerbaijani Red Crescent’s food cargo to Khankendi. And if Yerevan and Khankendi claim that there is some kind of a famine, a need for food, then you can expect that the cargo will be accepted - if people have nothing to eat, then logically they should thank Azerbaijan for the food provided. If this happens, all those who are interested in stabilizing the peace processes in the South Caucasus will breathe quietly, because this de facto means launching a full-fledged dialogue between Garabagh Armenians and Baku. Direct dialogue without mediators in the territory of Azerbaijan, where no one should interfere. If supplies arrive without interruption and without entering the territory of Armenia, it will be possible to arrange the supply of Russian peacekeepers.

The most likely negative scenario is that the Garabagh separatist leaders will block the movement of the food cargo towards Khankendi. Or they can accept and demonstrably destroy it, or claim that the cargo is damaged - everything is admissable. However, such scenarios will work against the anti-Azerbaijani campaign of Yerevan and the diaspora, because they will prove that there simply is no famine in Garabagh. However, it is to be hoped that everything will develop in line with the non-conflict peaceful scenario", Petrov summed up.